Mathematical Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

These last few days I've felt Godless. I've felt cleaner, less muddled, less blind. I still believe in a God. But he's so remote, so cold, so mathematical. I see that we have to live as if there is no God. Prayer and worship and singing hymns-all silly and useless.

Nowhere is intellectual beauty so deeply felt and fastidiously appreciated in its various grades and qualities as in mathematics, and only the informal appreciation of mathematical value can distinguish what is mathematics from a welter of formally similar, yet altogether trivial statements and operations.

Michael Polanyi

Without troublesome work, no one can have any concrete, full idea of what pure mathematical research is like or of the profusion of insights that can be obtained from it.

Without the power of observation, without judgment, without sagacity, all mathematical knowledge is useless.

Justus von Liebig

I shall mix together results which may prove to be of scientific importance and results that are probably no more than mathematical curiosities. The plan is to set down anything that seems worthy of note, even though we cannot see that it has any ultimate importance in nature.

Arthur Eddington

It is important to remember that the physical interpretation of the mathematical notions occurring in a physical theory must be compatible with the equations of the theory.

Andrzej Trautman

We cannot convey mathematics to the great mass of people unless we first dwell upon the utility of the subject and imagine what would happen to the world if every trace of mathematics and of mathematical knowledge should cease to exist.

David Eugene Smith

Mathematical problems in physics have their place in teaching; but physics should not be made a means of teaching mathematics.

John Trowbridge

Mathematical equations and literary phrases are useful but they are no substitute for the spatial eloquence of the map.

Arthur H. Robinson

Neither is it a small advantage of mathematical studies, even in their poorest and most meagre form, that they at least habituate the mind to resolve a train of reasoning into steps, and make sure of each step before advancing to another.

John Stuart Mill

The Engineer, inspired by the law of Economy and governed by mathematical calculation, puts us in accord with universal law. He achieves harmony.

Physics defines itself as the science devoted to discovering, developing and refining those aspects of reality that are amenable to mathematical analysis.

Like astronomy, which with mathematical certainty has measured the spaces of the heavens, so does modern geology, by taking a retrospective view of the millions of years which have passed, lift the veil which has so long concealed the history of the earth and has given rise to all kinds of religious and mysterious dreams.

Ludwig Büchner

He knew by heart every last minute crack on its surface. He had made maps of the ceiling and gone exploring on them; rivers, islands, and continents. He had made guessing games of it and discovered hidden objects; faces, birds, and fishes. He made mathematical calculations of it and rediscovered his childhood; theorems, angles, and triangles. There was practically nothing else he could do but look at it. He hated the sight of it.

The conception of tensors is possible owing to the circumstance that the transition from one co-ordinate system to another expresses itself as a linear transformation in the differentials. One here uses the exceedingly fruitful mathematical device of making a problem "linear" by reverting to infinitely small quantities.

Mathematical work does not proceed along the narrow logical path of truth to truth to truth, but bravely or gropingly follows deviations through the surrounding marshland of propositions which are neither simply and wholly true nor simply and wholly false.

From now on there will be no physical treatise which is not primarily mathematical.

It seems certain that there is a limit to the amount of living mathematics that humanity can sustain at any time. As new mathematical specialties arise, old ones will have to be neglected.

The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God.

Man knows only these poor mathematical theories about the heavens, and only God knows the real motions of the heavens and their causes.

Mathematical reasoning is like a long flight of steps; moral, like a short clamber up a craggy rock.

Richard Whately

The future of Thought and therefore of History lies in the hands of physicists, and therefore the future historian must seek his education in the world of mathematical physics.

The Martians seem to have calculated their descent with amazing amazing subtlety — their mathematical learning is evidently far in excess of ours.

I will try by some less mathematical Method than that of mere Numbers, to imprint an Idea in your Mind of the true Extent of the solar System.

Thomas Wright (astronomer)

It is a remarkable fact that the mathematical inventions which have proved to be most accessible to the masses are also those which exercised the greatest influence on the development of pure mathematics.